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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152702">By Sea</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinomingi/pseuds/dinomingi'>dinomingi</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>ATEEZ (Band)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Falling In Love, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending?, M/M, sad hours, sorry - Freeform</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 01:33:35</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,097</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23152702</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinomingi/pseuds/dinomingi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>After all those years without speaking, we spent his final hours lying side by side in the sailboat of the gentle blue silk sea, as he liked to call his bed, and I took the opportunity to tell him everything I couldn’t say before, everything I’d been holding in since that terrible night. </p>
<p>or</p>
<p>Yunho uses Mingi’s old notebooks to reclaim the past and come to terms with what happened to his best friend.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeong Yunho/Song Mingi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>19</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>By Sea</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>i hate first person shit but i promise it works for this story </p>
<p>also this is slightly based around one of my favorite books</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p><em>Barrabás came to us by sea</em>, Mingi wrote in his delicate calligraphy. He had gotten in the habit of writing down important matters at a young age, and afterward, when he was mute, he also recorded trivialities, never suspecting that twenty years later I would use his notebooks to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own.</p>
<p>It was a bland, autumnal day when the dog arrived at Mingi’s doorstep. His family had adopted it from overseas, in Spain, and he had fallen in love with it the moment he laid his eyes on the small, black creature. It took no time at all for his young heart to come up with a name; Barrabás, the name of his favorite band.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>My first encounter with Mingi, years after he had met his beloved Barrabás, was hardly an encounter at all. I was walking to school, eyes squinted in the harsh sun, when I heard the soft sound of paws on concrete. I turned around and was met with a boy my age approaching with a dog. I stepped aside into the grass to let them pass, not wanting to be in the way, and as the boy went by he gave me a smile so faint I could hardly tell it was a smile.</p>
<p>Despite how uneventful it was, I couldn’t get him off of my mind. I began to look forward to my walks to school, even if I only got to see him for a few seconds each day. Sometimes I would wave, or call out a greeting, and he would return it, making my heart race every time.</p>
<p>I don’t remember when it happened, but we eventually started walking together. He was gorgeous up close. I learned of his name, Mingi, and that he went to the same school as me. I wondered how I never noticed someone as striking as him in our boring old high school.</p>
<p>Our time walking soon seeped into our school time and into the rest of the day and eventually we were spending every second with each other. We had very similar interests, and as each day passed I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by him.</p>
<p>Before meeting Mingi, I had never felt desire for another man, but I would be damned to say his laugh didn’t let loose a swarm of bees in my stomach every time I heard it. The way his head tipped back, revealing all his teeth, never failed to make me long for him.</p>
<p>Fortunately, my feelings were not one-sided. Our sudden friendship soon turned into a rushed relationship. We couldn’t get enough of each other, sneaking out of our houses every night like characters in a movie just to see each other more. After graduating, we moved in with each other. I thought our closeness would become tiring but I found myself wanting more and more of him each day.</p>
<p>Upon living with him, I soon learned of Mingi’s obsession with writing. He owned a variety of notebooks and journals, and at the time, I had no idea what he wrote about in them. He never told me, and I was content with letting him keep that small aspect of himself private.</p>
<p>We loved like no one has ever loved before. There wasn’t a single inch of his skin I hadn’t touched. If asked, I could’ve made a perfect sculpture of him purely from memory. If only it could’ve stayed that way.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>I don’t remember what started it, the reason trivial, but we fought one night. It was a terrible fight, fabricated words and emotions thrown about, tears staining the floor. He made me mad, but why? I wish I could remember. I wish it had been important. The only thing I remember is the way I hit him, the way his head snapped to the side, the way he looked at me with fear and pain and every other bad thing in the world.</p>
<p>Things were never the same after that. I apologized, begged and pleaded for forgiveness, and he had given it to me. But it just wasn’t the same. Who knew love could be so easily reshaped?</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>Slowly but surely Mingi changed. He looked tired, and I could see that he was pulling away from me. The more distant he became, the more I needed his love. The desire I had for him when we had first starting dating had not diminished; I wanted to possess him absolutely, down to his last thought, but he would float by me like a breath of air, and even when I held him down with my hands and embraced him with all my strength, I could never make him mine again.</p>
<p>During the day, we went about our business. We both had a lot to do. We only met at dinnertime, and I was the one who wound up doing all the talking, because he was always in the clouds. He spoke very little, and had lost that fresh, brazen laughter that was the first thing I had loved about him. He no longer threw his head back and laughed with all his teeth showing. He barely even smiled.</p>
<p>I did what I could to get close to him again. God knows I tried! I would come into his room when he was busy writing in his notebooks or when he was lost in thought. I tried to share those aspects of his life, but he didn’t like anyone to read his notebooks that bore witness to life, and my presence interfered with his concentration, so I had to stop.</p>
<p>One day, Mingi had a bolt installed on his bedroom door and after that he never let me in his room again. He calmly explained that our relationship had deteriorated and concluded that if we had nothing to say to each other, we would also be unable to share a room. Oftentimes, I could hear muffled sobs through the locked door, and my heart ached knowing I couldn’t even comfort my love.</p>
<p>I wanted to protect him, to clasp him in my arms, to make him laugh like in the old days; I wanted to sleep with him beside me, his head on my shoulder…</p>
<p>At times I would decide to punish him by feigning indifference, but after a few days I gave up because he seemed more relaxed when I ignored him. The distance between us grew.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>The day Barrabás died was the day I finally noticed how sick Mingi had become. Our distance had kept me from seeing him, from noticing how thin he had become and how he stumbled when he walked. I tried to question him, to ask if he needed help, but he would only lock his door again, leaving my desperate cries on the other side of the thick wood.</p>
<p>At some point along the way, Mingi had gone mute. I didn’t notice at first since we no longer saw each other at all, but I could feel something missing. It didn’t take long for me to realize it was that laugh of his. I used to hear him chuckle to himself through his locked door, but the sound had been missing for weeks.</p>
<p>I began to worry more and more for him each day, and I eventually decided that I had to take matters into my own hands. I called a doctor to come to the house, knowing that Mingi would never agree to leave his room and risk seeing me. The doctor stayed in his room for a long time and I kept my distance, not wanting to be a disruption. When he finally exited, I was met with unwelcome news. Mingi was dying.</p>
<p>My world collapsed.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>I still can’t talk about it. But I’ll try to write it. It's been twenty years and for a long time my grief was unabating. I thought I would never get over it, but now I’m almost fifty and I understand what he meant when he promised he’d keep in touch. Before, I used to walk around as if I were lost, looking for him everywhere. Every night when I got into bed, I used to imagine he was lying there beside me, the way he did when he still had words and still loved me. I would turn out the light and close my eyes, and in the silence of my bedroom I tried to summon up his image. I called out to him when I was awake, and they say I did so in my sleep as well.</p>
<p>The night he was dying, I locked myself in the room with him. After all those years without speaking, we spent his final hours lying side by side in the sailboat of the gentle blue silk sea, as he liked to call his bed, and I took the opportunity to tell him everything I couldn’t say before, everything I’d been holding in since that terrible night. I told him of the pain in my heart, how much I missed his gentle embrace, my desperation to hear his deep laugh just one more time. He looked at me with sorrow in his eyes, a soft smile on his face as I frantically tried to tell him everything before he slipped away. His eyes closed more and more by the second, smile fading, grip on my hand growing softer until he was gone. He left my life as gently as he had entered it, with a smile that was hardly a smile at all.</p>
<p>I didn’t know then that the loneliness would never leave me. I wandered through the empty rooms of the house, went into Mingi’s bedroom and rifled his wardrobe and his dresser in hope of finding an old hoodie so I could hold it to my nose and retrieve, even for a fleeting instant, that sweet, clean smell of his. I would lie down on his bed, bury my face in his pillow, caress the objects he had left on his night table, and feel completely desolate.</p>
<p>I slept badly and constantly dreamed of Mingi. I would wake up screaming, but I was all alone, and there was no one to hear me. I was so depressed I even stopped shaving, didn’t change my clothes, and I don’t think I bathed either. Everything I ate tasted sour to me. I broke my knuckles banging on the walls.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>I wanted to die as soon as possible, because life without him had lost all meaning for me. I didn’t know that I still had a lot to do in this world. Fortunately, Mingi has returned, or perhaps he never left. I sometimes think that grief has affected my mind and that I can’t just ignore the fact I buried him twenty years ago. I suspect I’m seeing things, like a crazy old man. But those doubts melt away when I see him pass me in the halls or hear him laughing in the garden. I know he’s with me. I know he’s forgiven my awful actions and that he’s closer to me now than he ever was before. He’s still alive, and he’s still with me.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>As time goes by, I felt more and more alone. I hardly ever see Mingi in my house, and I eventually came to accept that he had left for good.</p>
<p>-</p>
<p>A few weeks ago, I finally built up the courage to read through his old notebooks. I kept them with me all this time, storing the life of my one true love in the back of my closet. <span>The memories in them are fragile. The space of a single life is brief, passing so quickly that we never get a chance to see the relationship between events; we cannot gauge the consequences of our acts, and we believe in the fiction of past, present, and future, but it also may be true that everything happens simultaneously.</span> That’s why Mingi wrote in his notebooks, in order to see things in their true dimension.</p>
<p>Mingi wrote in his notebooks that bore witness to his life for 24 years. I have them here at my feet, bound with colored ribbons, divided according to events and not in chronological order, just as he arranged them before he left. Mingi wrote them so they would help me now to reclaim the past and overcome terrors of my own. The first is an ordinary school copybook with twenty pages, written in a child’s delicate calligraphy. It begins like this: <em>Barrabás came to us by sea</em>...</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>hope you at least somewhat enjoyed </p>
<p>(twitter: dinomingi)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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